


Is This a Kissing Story?

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Blind Date, F/M, First Date, First Meeting, First Time, Human AU, Princess Bride References, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:45:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack swears they're perfect for each other, and they swear they want nothing to do with each other.  When Jack pushes them together by force of will, they're in for a surprise.  Jack always knows best in matters of the heart, after all!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is This a Kissing Story?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gallifreyslostson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyslostson/gifts).



> **In case you haven't heard, today is the birthday of the rather spectacular W**  
>  **hoson1st (GallifreysLostSon on Tumblr). If you've never read her writing, you're missing out. I suggest going and doing that right now, 'cause it's brilliant (way better than what you're about to read!).**
> 
>  
> 
> **What we have here is a birthday present for her. Being terrible about knowing what to give people, she's getting a bit of sexiness, some Ninth Doctor, some Rose, a bit of Jack, and my favourite movie of all time.**

"Not a chance, Jack," Rose said, shifting her cell phone to her shoulder as she fumbled open the door of her mother's flat. She'd been coming back from the laundrette, arms full of clean clothes when her best friend had called with an old request. "You're not even being subtle this time, are you sick?"

"It's not a blind date, Rose, Ianto wants to meet my two best friends on the planet, and I want you to meet my new boyfriend as well as my other best friend, and you'll get a nice meal out of it. Tell me where you're losing here?"

"How about the fact that I can't afford a nice dinner. I'm down to ten pounds in my bank account and just spent the last of the money I had in my purse to do laundry 'cause you're the only one around here who can get away with going to work naked."

"First of all, that was ages ago and doesn't count anymore. Second, you know I could-"

"No you couldn't," Rose snapped, cutting off what she knew would be an offer to pay for her dinner.

Jack sighed and Rose had a feeling she'd be getting one of his 'pride goeth before the fall' lectures in the next few days.

Better that than trying to set her up with-

"Jamie could pay?"

"Gods no. Jamie doesn't know me from anybody. And if he paid for me it'd just reinforce your blasted blind date idea."

Jack sighed again. "What if we went to a chippy?"

"Ten pounds until payday, Jack."

"Seriously, you won't let me buy you chips? You let me buy you a drink two nights ago!"

"You're not buying me chips on  _your date_. Besides, why would you take a date to the chippy anyway? I thought this one was a classy sort."

"Classy doesn't mean averse to fish and chips. Besides, the Doctor would probably prefer a place that doesn't require a collared shirt anyway. Haven't seen him wear one since we were practically kids."

Rose groaned. Jack was going to talk her into it, the bastard. She'd been avoiding meeting his friend Jamie for six months, ever since she and Mickey had ended things. At first it had been because things were too freshly severed with Mick, and it seemed wrong to jump right into something new, but ever since Mickey had taken up with Tricia Delaney a few weeks back, Jack had been pushing even harder.

The problem wasn't that Rose was averse to meeting men, or even that Jack had bad taste in friends- weird taste, sometimes, but not bad. No, it was that Jack had told her about the Doctor for years- ex-army mate, world-traveler, linguist, and, naturally, physician- and Rose, when comparing herself to all that, found herself wanting.

What the hell would a doctor (an actual  _doctor_ ) want with a chav from the Powell Estates who worked at a shop and still lived with her mum? Besides that she was nearly 15 years younger than him.

As though he could hear her thoughts through the phone, Jack started in on an old argument. "Jamie's just your type though, Rose. Older. Great smile. Nice bottom- and I know from bottoms, you know."

Rose couldn't help but laugh. "I'm not going on a date with your friend, Jack-"

"But Rooose," he interrupted on a whine.

"But," Rose spoke over him, "I will come meet your new boyfriend, and if your Doctor is there, I guess I'll meet him too. It's not a date, however! Wait until next weekend, after payday, and everything's fine."

~?~?~?~?~

"Go to Hell, Harkness," Jamie Foreman growled into his phone, cutting off Jack's invitation to dinner.

"Gods, what is it with you two? I want you both to meet my new boyfriend, it's easier to just do the 'introduce you to the friends who are my only family' thing once, my two best friends on the planet get to meet each other and learn that I'm right and they're perfect for one-another, and you get chips out of it. You love chips, Doc!"

"Breathe, Harkness," the Doctor said, faint humour discernable in his voice. "I don't mind meeting your new boy toy, nor do I have a problem with chips, it's your Rose friend I don't want anything to do with. Every time you set me up with a 'perfect' girl, I end up royally screwed in all the wrong ways."

"Come on, they haven't all been  _that_ bad," Jack objected. "Sometimes you got screwed in the right ways along with the wrong ones."

"Remember Jeanne? Jabe? River? Cassandra? Chan? Have your set-ups ever yielded good results?"

"Lynda wasn't so bad, was she? Or Cathica?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Lynda was boring and Cathica was more interested in her career than in doing the right thing."

"Oh yeah… the corruption thing at the newspaper. But Lynda didn't screw you over, you have to concede that."

The Doctor snorted. "Technically no, but when she left town to go on that reality show, I was only too happy to see her go. There's no chance I'm letting you set me up with another one of your bimbos."

"Rose isn't a bimbo. She's my best friend, Doc. The rest of those girls were just… chances for you to get out of your own head. Rose is the real thing."

"Yeah, yeah, so you've said. Pretty, smart, funny,  _twenty_."

"You're going to complain about her age, Doc? Really?"

"I don't date kids."

"She's not a kid… why are you so against meeting her? She's important to me, you're important to me, this is important to me. Just do it for me and I'll never ask you for anything again."

Jamie huffed, but didn't say anything. Jack heard him, however.

"Come on, Jamie. It's chips with friends, not a marriage proposal."

"Fine, but you owe me."

"Name the time and the place, and I'll be there with bells on."

"Bells and nothing else, eh?"

"Show up naked to  _one_ party, and no one  _ever_ lets you forget."

~?~?~?~?~

"This may be your worst idea yet, Jack."

Jack rolled his eyes. "It's going to be fine, Yan. They'll love you, they'll love each other, and everyone can agree that I'm brilliant. Promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep."

Jack picked up Yan's hand and kissed the knuckles gently. "They'll adore you, I promise. They're both far too clever to do anything else. As for each other, just… let me dream my two favourite people on the planet would end up happy together, okay?"

Ianto grinned. "Whatever makes you happy."

The bell over the door chimed and both Jack and Ianto turned toward the door. Through it walked a handsome pair, chatting. The man was older by several years, though his smile was youthful. He was tall, lean, and dark-haired, with a striking face- sharp cheekbones, Roman nose, and ears that stuck out just a bit too far. He wore dark colours- black jeans and boots, a black leather jacket, and a dark red jumper under it all. His head was bent in conversation with a girl with a smile that seemed to light up the room. She was much shorter than he, with dyed-blonde hair and large, dark-lashed eyes. She was wearing pink.

Upon walking into the restaurant they both glanced around and, at the same moment cried "Jack" upon spying him.

They then turned toward each other again, cheerful expressions vanished and wary suspicion in their places.

"Doctor Jamie Foreman?" the girl said, raising an eyebrow.

"Rose?" the man asked, narrowing sharp blue eyes.

They both turned suspicious glances toward their friend, who opened his guileless blue eyes wide. "You can't blame this one on me!" His smile then turned wicked in a flash, "but do tell how this happened."

~?~?~?~?~

Rose stood across the road from the chippy where she was to meet Jack and took several steadying breaths.

"He's not important," she murmured to herself. "You're here for Jack, and his doctor friend is nobody. You're not here for that."

She glanced down at herself, knowing it was a bit of a lie. She'd stressed about her appearance all morning- she wanted to look good, but incidentally good, not as though she'd tried. She didn't want the Doctor to think she'd tried to look good for him because she was absolutely not there to meet him. Makeup, yes. Skirt, no. Favourite pink top, yes. Heels, no.

One more deep breath, and Rose stepped into the road, distracted by nerves and her thoughts and was therefore surprised when her hand was grabbed and she was roughly pulled back against a solid, warm something as a bus sped by right where she'd been about to step.

Rose turned, her hand still caught in that of her rescuer and found herself looking into a pair of bright blue eyes in a compellingly handsome face. Before she could say anything ("thank you," "who are you," and "how about a drink" all came immediately to mind) he was tugging her hand again.

"Run," he said, with a grin, and pulled her across the now-empty street.

By the time they'd made it to the other side, the adrenaline and shock had caught up with her, and Rose was giggling like a mad person. The bloke who'd taken her hand (and hadn't yet dropped it, she noticed with surprise and not a little pleasure) grinned at her, and that offer for a drink suddenly seemed the most important of the options to say to him.

Good manners won out over a deprived sex drive, however, and instead she said, "thank you," quite sincerely.

"No problem," he said, shaking his head and still smiling, and the Manc accent that Rose had thought she detected in that first word was clear.

It was also dead sexy.

"Where are you headed?" the bloke asked, glancing around. "I could walk you there. You seem to be a bit jeopardy-friendly, and I wouldn't want my knight-in-shining-armour routine to be for nothing."

"Was that what you were doing there then? Waiting for some girl to step out in front of a moving car so you could save her?" Rose grinned and was pleased to see those bright blue eyes zero in on her tongue as it made its customary appearance at the side of her mouth.

The bloke blinked and shook his head as though clearing it of fog. "Er… no, not exactly. Meeting someone for lunch here." He grinned down at her. "Just lucky, I suppose."

"Yeah," Rose breathed. "Me too."

"Lucky?"

Rose laughed. "That too, but I'm meeting a friend for lunch." She nodded at the chippy.

"There?" he asked in surprise. "Me too!"

"Oh yeah? Someone important, is it? They're the best chips in town."

The bloke huffed down his long nose. "She might think she's important."

Rose glanced down at their still-clasped hands, then raised an eyebrow at him. "She?"

The tips of his largeish ears flamed, and he dropped her hand suddenly. "Sorry," he muttered, gruffly. "But no, she's no one. Friend trying to set me up. She's bound to be a stupid ape, and it'll be excruciating."

Rose patted his leather-clad arm with a sympathetic smile. "Maybe it won't be so bad. It's your lucky day, after all."

"If it is, then maybe you'll be available when I'm done and I can take you for coffee, or maybe a pint?"

"You just might," she said, grinning again.

"Fantastic," he said, as they pushed into the warm, oil-scented air of the chippy.

~?~?~?~?~

Jamie glared at Jack, then down at the charming girl he'd been talking to. "Just lucky I guess," he growled, in response to Jack's question.

He turned to her and stuck out a hand that was still tingling from holding hers less than five minutes before.

"Jamie Foreman," he said, brusquely.

"Rose Tyler," she replied, looking surprised at his sudden change of tone. She shrugged and took his hand, shaking it firmly, then turned her sun-bright smile on Jack and the handsome bloke at his side. "And you must be Ianto. I've no idea what you're doing with this degenerate," she said with a head-tilt toward Jack, and a wink to soften the words. "You look far too good for him."

"Ouch, Rosie, my pride," Jack said, swooning dramatically with his hand over his heart as though mortally wounded.

Rose shook her head at his antics, and stretched up on her toes to buss his cheek, then Ianto's in turn.

The Doctor had no idea what to make of Rose Tyler- she was precisely what Jack had said, and precisely the opposite of what he'd expected. She was clever, funny, beautiful, and twenty.

It hadn't seemed to matter outside the shop, with her big, brown eyes on him, her cheeky answers, and her heart-pounding grin. Not until he'd heard her call out to Jack and realized who she must be had her age made even the slightest difference to him.

And his, wonder of wonders, seemed to make absolutely no difference to her. She'd responded flatteringly to his teasing, and had seemed entirely open to coffee after chips.

Why, he wondered to himself as he shook Ianto's hand, was he being so stubborn about this? If not for the connection to Jack, he'd have no qualms about seeing where those golden eyes and that sun-bright smile might lead him.

"I want chips," Rose said, looking up at him with a raised eyebrow. "You planning on eating, or am I too much a stupid ape to even consider it?"

The Doctor winced at the words. "Sorry about that… I didn't… well…"

She shrugged. "You can apologize by buying me chips, yeah?"

Neither of them noticed Jack's surprise.

The Doctor patted the pockets of his leather jacket and realized, with a start, that his wallet wasn't in them. He looked up at her with wide, shocked eyes.

"Er…"

Rose shook her head. "What kind of a date are you? Come on then, tightwad, chips are on me."

As the Doctor followed her like iron filings to a magnet, Jack leaned over to Ianto. "Told you so," he whispered.

~?~?~?~?~

As they sat eating chips, Ianto watched Jamie and Rose carefully.

He'd heard of both of them from Jack. They were the only family that Jack had (his parents and brother had died ages back in the sort of event that you didn't really talk about in the first three months of dating) and he adored both of them. When there was a question of knowledge, Jack turned to Jamie who seemed to know just about every fact under the sun. When it was a question of advice or emotion Jack turned to Rose who had sharp instincts and a warm heart.

Ianto had no idea why these two had never met before. He'd asked, before they'd arrived.

"They're both stubborn idiots," was all he'd been told.

Now he watched the pair of them together and was fascinated. They were both good-looking (more than he'd expected, considering Jack insisted that he'd never slept with either of them). They barely talked to each other, directing most of their comments toward himself or Jack, but they were seated on the same side of the table, in a bench seat that might have technically been built for two, but could only comfortably fit one and a half. He and Jack were practically in one-another's laps. Jamie and Rose weren't quite that cozy, Rose being a bit smaller than the men at the table, but they did brush against each other regularly, and there was something between them that seemed to spark every time they touched.

It was a bit like watching a lightning storm in its intensity.

"What about movies," Rose asked. "What kinds of movies do you like?"

They had been discovering that Ianto had spent much of his life working, and hadn't had much in the way of a social life before running into Jack in the pub.

"I don't really know a lot of movies. I never go to the cinema, and just… don't have much of a collection or anything. Jack's been showing me things."

"Yeah, Jack has quite the collection," Jamie said with a grin.

"We haven't gotten into my secret stash, Doc, never you fear," Jack said, winking at Jamie.

"Some of those are remarkably entertaining," Rose said, shrugging, making both Ianto and Jamie turn to stare at her in surprise. "Jack showed me one awhile back… what was it called? Right,  _Lord of the G-Strings: The Femaleship of the String_."

Jack laughed out loud. "That was completely brilliant, that one."

"What…" Jamie began, his ears flaming red as he tried not to look at Rose, casually eating her chips beside him.

"Oh, you'd love it, Doc. It's a terrible parody of Lord of the Rings (obviously). It looks like someone filmed it in their backyard, there's almost no sex, and the puns- porn is built on their puns- are appalling! It's really funny!"

"And… er… you watched it with him?" Jamie asked, looking at Rose for the first time.

Ianto nearly shivered at the electricity that seemed to pass between them.'

"There was a certain amount of alcohol involved in the decision-making process," Rose said with a shrug. "Not like it was sexy."

"One of the girls took off her top to the Hanna-Barbera 'boing' sound effect. It was the opposite of sexy."

"Oh yeah, you swore off sex for about 12 hours after that," Rose said with a grin.

Jack laughed and Ianto saw Jamie glance at her. Jack had told him what Jamie had expected of Rose Tyler, 20-year-old shopgirl and potential blind date. Ianto could tell that the Doctor was shocked by the clever, charming, slightly bawdy young woman at his side, when he'd expected a frivolous and foolish child.

"So what has Jack had you watch thus far?" Jamie asked, trying to bring the conversation back into safe ground.

"We started Firefly the other day," Ianto said.

"Good choice!" Rose said at the same moment that Jamie said "fantastic!"

The pair of them turned to each other, eyes narrowed like a pair of strange cats.

"You like Firefly?" Jamie asked, suspiciously.

"No, I  _love_ Firefly," Rose said. "Spaceships, pirates, western… where can you possibly go wrong?"

"Back when it first came out, I told the Doc that he'd make a much better space pirate than Nathan Fillion," Jack said.

Rose ran an appraising eye over her seatmate, then gave a nonchalant shrug that fooled nobody. The heat in her gaze would have been palpable from a mile away.

"Suppose I can see it. You'd need a longer coat."

"Anyway," the Doctor said, ears flaming and turning back to Ianto, "has he shown you anything else?"

"Well… he recommended a movie that I hadn't seen and said we'd watch it tonight."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" Rose asked.

"He's never seen  _The Princess Bride_ , Rose," Jack said as though this were the most horrifying news on the planet.

Both Jamie and Rose's eyes shot open at this, turning to look at Ianto in horrified shock.

"What?" he said, shocked at the sudden scrutiny.

"You've never seen  _The Princess Bride_?" Jamie asked.

"I dunno, it always sounded kind of silly," Ianto said with a shrug.

" _The Princess Bride_  is only the best love story ever told!" Rose enthused. "I've seen it so many times, I can probably quote the entire thing from memory."

Jamie suddenly looked interested. "Can you really?"

Rose looked surprised. "Yeah, probably. I've a good memory for that sort of thing."

"Prove it."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "You want me to start at the beginning and just run through the entire ninety-odd minutes?"

"Doctor," Jack said, exasperated.

"What about one of the scenes… the iocane scene?"

"I propose a battle of wits," Rose began, grinning at him. "For the princess? To the death? I accept."

She continued, changing her accent slightly for each character, managing Vizzini's American accent and slight lisp with facility. Ianto listened, fascinated, Jack watched with amusement, and the Doctor seemed mesmerized.

"I've spent the last five years building up an immunity to iocane powder," Rose concluded, and all three men applauded her performance.

"Fantastic," the Doctor said.

"Oh get a room you two," Jack muttered at the grinning pair, so low that only Ianto could hear.

~?~?~?~?~

The chips had been eaten nearly an hour before, but still the foursome had remained at the table, talking and laughing until Jack and Ianto had agreed that it was past time for them to go.

Left alone on their bench, Jamie and Rose found themselves feeling awkward again.

"Look," Jamie burst out in a rush, "I'm really sorry about what I said before. It's only… Jack has a really bad habit of setting me up with the worst possible people, and he's been pushing me toward you for… well ages. And you're… well, I didn't want you to think the person I was meeting mattered because… because I really wanted to see you again." He was flushed as a tomato by the time he'd gotten it all out, but Rose was smiling.

"Yeah, okay," she said with a grin. "How about you buy me that drink then?"

Jamie shrugged. "No money."

"Mmmm, you'll have to buy me a drink before I'll let you take me home."

"I think there's a cash point on the way."

~?~?~?~?~

Rose giggled as she leaned into the Doctor's side. She wasn't drunk, not really, but she'd had a couple of drinks and she liked having the excuse to press close to him and smell leather and soap and some underlying, indefinable male smell that was unique and sexy as hell.

"So I start up the Jeep, figure I'll just leave Jack behind at this point considering all the trouble he's gotten us into, but the naked idiot jumps onto the bumper and clings on for dear life as I'm doing my damndest to shake him off," the Doctor was saying.

"Why is Jack always naked?"

The Doctor shrugged, dislodging her slightly. "He seems to like it."

Rose moved to sit up in the bench at the pub when the Doctor, in a move that she might have thought entirely unconscious could she not see his ears flaming, put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her back into him. She picked up her latest pint and buried the smile in it.

The Doctor glanced at his watch and sighed.

"Places to go? People to see?" Rose asked, insinuating herself even closer to his side.

The Doctor snorted a laugh. "Can't think of any place I'd rather be, but I do have work in the morning."

"On a Sunday?"

"Well, you know what they say about rest and the wicked."

Rose sighed and started to pull away from him again, only to be stopped as his arm tightened around her shoulder.

"Let me walk you home?"

The wise answer would be "no." Keep everything light between them- flirty and fun without expectations. She could leave him with her number, leave the ball in his court and hope for the best. Or she could say "yes," let him walk her to her mother's place and face his possible censure when she couldn't invite him up.

"I... I live with my mum. No idea if Jack told you that but I couldn't..."

"That wasn't what I was hoping for, Rose," Jamie said, seriously. "I just want to see you safe home. No expectations. Tonight... it's already exceeded every expectation i could possibly have had. I'd love to do it again, but if the night ends now and no more heard about it, I'd be fine with that."

Rose raised her eyebrows at him in surprise, and Jamie laughed.

"Well, 'fine' might be overstating it. I'd be disappointed and no mistake, but that shouldn't make you think you have to go out with me again."

"Mmm," Rose hummed. "And what if I want to go out with you again, eh?"

"Well, you could let me know in one or all of several ways. You could let me walk you home and leave me with the kind of goodbye kiss that'll make me never forget you and hunt you down all over the city. You could let me walk you home, give me that kind of goodbye kiss, and simplify my life by also giving me your number. You could let me walk you home, skip the goodbye kiss, and just give me your number. You could give me your number and let me get you a cab home…"

"I think I get it," Rose said, laughing. "You'd like my number, is that it?"

"Wouldn't object to the kiss, but yeah, I would."

Rose shook her head, still snickering, and held out a hand into which he placed his mobile phone. She programmed her number in then handed the device back to him with a smile.

"So that's it then, is it?" she teased. "Off home for me and wait for a call to see if we'll go out again."

"Though I said I'd see you home?"

Rose opened her mouth to tell him that she didn't need his protection, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to it. She might not need it, but it was proving very difficult to see the time with him end, and she had no guarantee that, come the morning and the resumption of real life, he would not conclude that he'd been right originally and should avoid further contact with her at all cost.

Pretty words were nice, but she thought maybe he'd had a good idea with that goodnight kiss.

Older than her, cleverer than her, more than her, maybe, but he'd never made her feel like less in the hours they'd spent together, and she'd enjoyed his company- his quick wit, his humour, and his obvious interest in her as a person, not simply as a potential sexual conquest.

"Yeah, all right then, Dr. Foreman. I'll let you walk me home."

The smile he gave her- bright as the rising sun and mad as a hatter- swept away any remaining doubts she might have had.

One they made it into the cool night outside, their hands seemed to find each other like magnets, twisting together so their fingers were intertwined.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rose saw the Doctor glance down at their hands, and when he spoke, she could hear the smile in his words.

"So how did you meet Jack?"

Rose laughed. "He took me dancing among the stars."

"What?"

"Well, that's what he told me he was going to do. He tried to pick me up in a pub, said he could take me to see the stars."

"And that worked?"

"God no! I laughed in his face and he got all offended. Said it was one of his best lines. I asked him if he mostly tried to pull girls in the head-injury ward of the hospital. Well… we ended up talking a lot after that, and he did actually know a place to see the stars and talked me into going. It was a rooftop in one of the older districts. It wasn't a great view, but it was better than most places in the city. We did actually dance. He set his phone to play this old song and it was nice. We left there as best friends and we've been that ever since." She squeezed his hand in reassurance that there was nothing between her and Jack but the love of a friend. "And you? I know you two were in army together, is that where you met?"

"We weren't technically together in army. He's American, you might have noticed."

"I'd picked up on that, yeah."

"Well, my story's a bit like yours, just without the dancing: we'd been stationed with some Americans in Afghanistan, and he tried to pull me over dinner one night. Told him he was barking up the wrong tree, but I was flattered. He listened to the last bit but not the first, but he never made a nuisance of himself."

Rose raised a skeptical eyebrow, and Jamie laughed again.

"Okay, he was a bit of a nuisance, but never when it counted, and I call that a win. No one I'd rather have at my back in a fight, anyway."

Rose nodded, seeming to understand. "He's brilliant, Jack. Knows a bit of everything and just... loves everyone."

"It's gotten him into trouble a time or two, that loving nature of his, and he's neither a fool nor a romantic..."

"Not always, that's true, but he can be."

"Which? The fool or the romantic?"

Rose grinned. "Both."

"Well, most blokes are a bit foolish when they're being romantic aren't they?"

Rose snorted a derisive laugh. "Wouldn't much know. Don't know a whole host of blokes interested in being romantic, me."

"Really? No one's ever swept you off your feet before?"

"Nah, that's for princesses. Sweeping off the feet, white knights, noble steeds? That isn't for girls from the Estate who work in shops. We're lucky to get blokes who take us out for a pint before telling us to kit off."

The Doctor squeezed her hand. "The Estates or a palace, every girl deserves better than that."

"Right."

"I know I'm right!"

"No," Rose said, laughing. "Go right here… to get back to my mum's place?"

"Oh… right."

"That's what I said."

They walked in silence for several more blocks and the Doctor felt his awareness begin to centre in their clasped hands. She had reached for him without thought, and he'd reached for her right back. That had never happened before. He'd loved before- of course he had, he was pushing 40- but it had never been quite like this- a touch of the hands that went straight to his stomach, creating butterflies and snakes and knots and all those things that the pop songwriters seemed to have found themselves swallowing any time they met a pretty girl. The Doctor wasn't given to such things, he was far too old for puppy love, and yet Rose Tyler made him feel young.

As though she were reading his thoughts, she asked, "when's your birthday? Jack's never said."

Jamie sighed, knowing the real question she was asking. He thought he'd been expecting it, but he didn't want to answer. "I'm 36, Rose," he said with a wince. "I'll turn 37 this year."

"That's good, but when? I'm guessing the end of November, sometime after the 22nd, am I right?"

Jamie blinked, surprised. "Yeah, November 23. How'd you guess?"

Rose grinned. "All my friends are Gemini, but I always end up attracted to Sagittarius."

"You believe in all that crap?" Jamie asked, teasing.

"Nope, just picked up a few patterns over the years, you know."

"Are you saying you're attracted to me?"

She looked over at him with an arched brow. "Was there any doubt?"

Jamie could feel himself blushing and changed the subject. "So why aren't you dating some young, pretty Sagittarius in that case?" the Doctor asked. He wasn't sure he really wanted to know, but couldn't help being curious about what could possibly lead a gorgeous young woman who could clearly have her pick of blokes (considering the looks she'd received in the pub) to walking down a dark street holding hands with an old fool like him.

"There was a bloke once, surprised Jack hasn't told you about him."

"All he's ever told me about you is that you're brilliant, beautiful, and perfect for me." Though he'd never given his best friend's statements any credence, he was pretty sure Jack had been dead on.

"Oh… well Jack met me right before I started dating Jimmy, so he should know better on all counts. Jimmy was trouble- Jack knew it and told me from the beginning, but I was 16 and thought he was the world." Rose shrugged. "He wasn't. They never are, are they? After Jimmy was Mickey, who was a friend. A better friend than I deserved, really. He saw me through the aftermath, but then I didn't really need him anymore, and I started to be able to see that we were, neither of us, going anywhere good. I ended things with him about six months ago and have been eaten up with guilt (more than I'd like to admit inflicted by my mother) since then."

Jamie and Rose were silent for a bit longer as they continued through the darkening streets. The city never really slept, that many people rarely do, but it was quieting down, and they were both able to entertain their thoughts.

Finally Rose stopped in front of a large, industrial-looking block of flats and turned.

"This is me," she said with an apologetic shrug.

Jamie wondered what she thought she had to apologize for, but found that his tongue didn't seem to work properly suddenly.

"Thank you for today… just… for everything. For saving me, obviously, but also for dinner and for… talking to me. Like I'm a person."

"Rose," he said, quietly, taking a half step toward her. "Don't let anyone talk down to you. Even if you never want to see me again, promise me that. You deserve better."

She smiled at him, and he remembered the first time- after he'd pulled her across the street and she'd grinned and it was like the sun coming out. He'd had to blink at the brilliance that first time, and he still did.

"I'd like to see you again," she said, and a pink flush rose in her cheeks, charming him.

Then, suddenly, she was moving toward him. She was in his space, close enough to touch, though she wasn't quite touching him. He could smell her- beer and cigarette smoke from the pub, grease from the chippy, a low note of air pollution that was simply the nature of living in London, a sweetly floral shampoo, and underneath it all that earthy, sexy smell of female skin- sweat and chemicals and hot, pulsing blood.

She swiped her tongue over her lips, looking up at him through the fringe of her eyelashes. Jamie couldn't seem to breathe. His tongue was thick, filling his mouth and keeping him from speaking. He had no idea what to do with his hands, his eyes, his feet. He thought he must look like an ape, just standing there dumbfounded.

Then she was rising on the toes of her pink trainers and, before he was sure of anything, he was sure of only one thing- her mouth was on his.

And then, suddenly, she was touching him, hands at his shoulders, balancing herself, fingernails digging into black leather, and he hoped those marks stayed forever. And his hands knew what to do, settling on her hips, pulling her close to him, thumbs stroking over the half-inch of skin exposed by her t-shirt riding up above her jeans. And his mouth and hers were moving, and they were saying things they hadn't yet said, and couldn't yet believe, lips gentle over each other's lips.

And then her tongue was there, where it hadn't been before, and he wondered how he could possibly have forgotten that pink tongue that had distracted him through the entire day, peeking between her teeth when she was being clever or teasing him. Her lips had made him forget for a moment, but not for long. He met her tongue with his, stroking, sparring, gently teasing, keeping the kiss light, knowing it was too early for what his heart kept telling him.

And then her arms had slid around his neck, and her hands were caressing the short hairs on the back of his head, and his arms were around her waist, and one hand cupped her bottom to pull her closer to him, and her breasts were crushed against his chest, and the entire kiss had devolved from a conversation between mouths to a single thought- to be one.

After a long moment that might have been minutes or hours or years, they both had to break apart for oxygen.

"Yeah," Rose said, a slightly breathless quality to her voice that nearly made the Doctor grab her and return to the snog they had just stopped. "Yeah, I really want to see you again. Soon?"

"Can't be soon enough."

~?~?~?~?~

Jamie called the next day. They went out again two days later, and then two days after that. The next time they had to wait three days. After their fifth date in two weeks, Jackie insisted that Rose bring him around to tea. He couldn't remember precisely what he said to make her slap him, but his ears rang for an hour. The next time he went to their place, Jackie kissed him. Jamie couldn't be sure which was the more horrible experience.

Rose had been afraid that meeting her mother (and the subsequent slap) would keep him from calling her again. She'd been wrong and he'd called her the following night.

Four weeks later, they'd not gone more than four days without seeing each other, and never more than 15 hours without calling.

The Doctor felt young- he had a girlfriend. A twenty-year-old girlfriend. A twenty-year-old girlfriend who wasn't with him for his money, or his job, but because she seemed genuinely to enjoy his company and was honestly attracted to him. He thought perhaps he was dreaming, but then he'd see her smile and hope he never woke up.

Finally, one night, Jamie invited Rose over to his place.

"I'll cook for you."

"You can cook?" she'd asked with a somewhat unflattering amount of surprise.

"'Course I can cook. Genius, me, I can do anything!"

"Except remember to take your books back to the library on time."

The Doctor grinned. There was something impossibly cozy about having someone to remind him of those little things in his life. He remembered his last girlfriend, River, and how he'd avoided domesticity with her like the plague, afraid it would bring her too close- let her see too much. With Rose, he wanted her to know those little foibles, and for her to find them exasperatingly endearing.

He was falling hard and fast and couldn't find it in himself to care.

He made pasta- he'd been, perhaps, a bit boastful when he'd agreed to cook, but he could make a decent pasta dish and be certain it would come out alright. He'd just pulled out a bottle of wine, and some bread when there was a knock at his door that signaled Rose.

She stood, as beautiful as a painting, and even if he'd wanted to, Jamie could not have kept himself from kissing her.

They'd become most adept at kissing, he and Rose. After every date, when he left her at her mother's door, they stood longer and longer. They'd been kicked out of one pub for being caught snogging in a corner, and nearly taken to jail when a police officer had wandered in on them kissing in an alleyway one evening.

When he finally let her breathe and step inside, she took a deep breath through her nose and sighed.

"It smells fantastic," she said, grinning up at him with the sparkle of mischief in her eyes whenever she borrowed his favourite word.

"It'll taste better, promise," he said. "Don't have a dining table, me," he admitted, nodding her toward his couch. "Tend to eat and work or eat and watch telly if I haven't got work to do. Thought we might watch a movie though."

"Yeah? What movie's that?" Rose asked, sitting where he'd indicated, then turning to watch him make up plates in the kitchen.

"You'll see, Rose Tyler. You'll see."

Jack had been impossibly smug when he'd learned that Jamie and Rose were seeing each other regularly, and rarely lost an opportunity to gloat. On his latest call, Jamie had admitted his plans with Rose that night, and Jack had recommended the movie.

For once, Jamie had been thrilled to take Jack's advice, though he would never admit it.

He came to the living room with two plates of salad, pasta, and bread, two forks, and two napkins, then went back to the kitchen to return in a moment with two glasses of wine.

"Alright then, I'm impressed," Rose said with a smile. "You can cook. Well done."

"I can't believe you thought I'd lie to you."

"Mmm, I'm not going to find cartons from the neighbourhood carryout place in your trash, am I?"

"Never! You've wounded my honour, Ms. Tyler." The Doctor clapped his hand to his heart to demonstrate, and Rose started to giggle. After a moment, she calmed herself and lifted her glass.

"To your honour."

Jamie grinned and touched the rim of her glass with his and they both took a sip.

"So what movie did you end up deciding on, or did you pick at random?"

"Not random, though I may have gotten the suggestion from Jack. Not that you're allowed to tell him that. He's been insufferable for weeks."

"Ugh, I know," Rose said. "I got a huge box of condoms in the mail yesterday. I didn't realize you could get banana condoms by the gross. Seems excessive."

"Hardly," the Doctor said, dryly. "Bananas are good."

"Jack seems to think so too."

Jamie shook his head and reached over for the remote control that would start the film he had queued up. The screen had barely come on and the first notes of the introductory music started when Rose squealed, "The Princess Bride!"

She launched herself at him and kissed him tasting of wine and rosemary bread and her own sweet self.

He'd intended them to watch the film together, quoting and laughing and him telling her stories out of the book, but suddenly it didn't matter. William Goldman and Cary Elwes and the whole lot of them could go hang because Rose Tyler was laying across him, kissing him, and nothing in the world mattered.

And so, while the farm boy, Westley, told his Buttercup that her wish was his command, Jamie's fingers found their way under the hem of Rose Tyler's shirt to the soft, smooth skin of her back and belly.

And when Buttercup realized that "as you wish" really meant "I love you," Jamie juddered under Rose's hands as her fingers under his jumper found a ticklish spot.

When Buttercup insisted that she would never love again, Rose's lips and teeth found a spot on Jamie's neck that made him break out in gooseflesh.

When Prince Humperdink announced his engagement, Jamie took one of Rose's bud-like nipples between his fingertips and made her gasp as he rolled it.

As Fezzik and Inigo began their rhyming games, Jamie pulled off Rose's shirt and, with a deft flick of his long fingers, unhooked her bra to bend his head to worship her breasts.

As Buttercup swum, paralyzed by fear of the shrieking eels, Rose tugged at Jamie's ear to bring his attention back to her and, through a series of determined tugs, had him pulling his shirt off.

As the second ship was being watched with suspicion by the clever Spaniard, Jamie unbuttoned Rose's jeans, pulled them off and caressed her through the silky pink fabric of her knickers.

Sometime during the climb up the cliffs of insanity, Rose came for the first time around Jamie's long, clever fingers.

During the man in black's climb to the heights, Rose began tugging at Jamie's jeans, pulling them and his pants off in one motion.

As the man in black and Inigo fought at the edge of the cliff, Rose put her mouth to Jamie, and he shut his eyes, allowing the banter of the two fictional men to keep him from popping off straight away in Rose's mouth.

As the man in black made his way to Fezzik for hand-to-hand combat, Jamie pulled Rose away from himself and laid her back on the couch, covering her with his body. He slid a hand inside of her again to be sure she was ready and, as the man in black and Vizzini began their battle of wits, that clever, funny scene that had brought him and Rose together, he slid inside of her with a groan of content.

~?~?~?~?~

"Funny movie for a seduction," Rose murmured, lying naked across his chest as Valerie the witch chased Miracle Max around their house.

"Couldn't think of a better one, since it's us."

**Author's Note:**

> **In case you were wondering, _Lord of the G-String: Femaleship of the String_  does in fact exist in the real world and not a single statement made about it over the course of this story was false.**


End file.
